Mermaids' response to the Cass review

52 replies

WarriorNonVerbalHateCrime · 26/04/2024 08:29

I had a look to see if this had been posted and couldn't see anything.

Jfc

We have significant concerns about mandatory participation in research as a condition of access to treatment, and the way in which this area of gender care has been politicised far more than any other.

They don't get it do they.

And they mention that

"We will continue to advocate for supportive schoolss*, where young people are able to express themselves authentically."

OP posts:

PriOn1 · 27/04/2024 20:40

LizzieSiddal · 26/04/2024 10:37

So even after Cass they want to carry on experimenting on dc?

That alone should be enough to have their charity status withdrawn.

What Mermaids is demanding is much, much worse.

Cass has indicated that further experimentation on children is acceptable.**

I presume any such experimentation/research will have to be strictly controlled and well designed to give higher quality evidence than is currently available.

Mermaids want children to continue to receive an experimental treatment without any further research, despite the fact that Cass has stated the poor quality of the current available evidence means that is an unsafe pathway.

**I strongly disagree with Cass on further experimentation on children until stringent efforts have been made to trace and follow up the 9000 patients already treated and not properly followed up.

ButterflyHatched · 28/04/2024 04:00

BigBadaBoom · 27/04/2024 17:43

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/

This is the new NHS England policy on using puberty blockers. It advises that they should not be seen as standard treatment, and that a review of evidence carried out by NICE found that existing studies were poor quality and that there is no evidence showing a benefit to using the type reviewed.

Cass is the lightening-rod, but her report is not the only review of the evidence coming to the same conclusion. I expect other health services will now be conducting their own reviews, which I expect will also come to similar conclusions.

The NHS policy document notes that puberty blockers used this way are "off-label". This is for me the smoking gun. No matter what you believe personally, as a clincian, to routinely prescribe potentally harmful medication to children whilst fully aware that it has not been scientifically evaluated for the purpose AND also not even try to find out if it has the desired result through long-term clinical trials is downright negligent.

Aside from the trans debate this is a medical scandal in its own right. If it was happening in any other area of child healthcare it would be seen as such. What I would like to see is an investigation into whether or not patients were fully informed about the lack of evidence showing efficacy. Medical consent is cornerstone of ethical treatment, so we need to know if genuine informed consent was sought and given. And if the clinicians themselves failed to review the evidence and still prescribed them off-label, that's quite a mistake. Someone has fucked up here and it's important that we find out who.

We were. Quite thoroughly.

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